About Us

PORO-CLIM is looking at how Earth's deep interior has affected global climate in the geological past.  Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) are huge outpourings of lava accompanied by voluminous release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  We are investigating why LIPs coincide with some of the most remarkable global climate changes and mass extinctions in Earth's history.  Specifically, we are asking whether our local LIP, the North Atlantic LIP, which comprises ancient volcanic eruptions from Giant’s Causeway to western Greenland, could have driven a natural global climate change event that is the closest deep-time analogue of anthropogenic environmental change (though the modern change is happening much faster).  To answer these questions, we need accurate measurements of the thickness of Earth’s crust along four tracks in the North Atlantic ocean, to the west of Ireland and Britain.